Marking fish?

**fryguy** · 02-22-2007, 05:12 PM

marking fish was mentioned in another thread and i want everyone's input on this. what do you think is the best way to do it? could anyone take a picture of a fin that has a mark and post it? i have always wondered about this but i was afraid if i started cutting fins i would think every fish i caught was my fish (lots of fish seem to have nicked up fins) do they sell little beads or anything that might also work? is there a special shape? just looking for more info because it would be cool to do this around my dock to see how fast they grow and things like that.

**CrappieHusker** · 02-22-2007, 05:51 PM

Fishing around our dock we catch the same fish a lot. The reason we know that is we catch and release a lot and when we fish a lot the fish have a tendency to develop holes around their mouths! In a sense we are marking the fish that we catch. The time I am sorry that I have done that is when I catch a nice slab, let it go and a closeby boat minutes later catch one about the same size and of course they keep it! Last year my wife was fishing with me down at our dock, and a good sized crappie hit and broke her line. About ten minutes later, she caught a crappie with her jig and a short length of line...the same jig and the same fish. That's another way to mark a fish. :D Need a lot of jigs.
To mark a fish how about (don't tell PITA) taking a paper punch and punching through the top tail fin?

**fryguy** · 02-22-2007, 08:02 PM

i understand that duncan, that's why i'm wondering if some kind of tiny glass bead with a small piece of wire could work. that way, you could color code the beads to correlate with the size when you caught them. red bead for a
7" fish, green for an 8", etc.
then, if the fish becomes a trophy and someone wants to put it on their wall, just snip the wire.
a replica mount would work also if the fin did have a hole in it.

**beagle man** · 02-23-2007, 07:50 AM

I just fish, dont care if i catch a big one, little one. the only thing i mark is the spot close to where i caught the fish i have caught 4in. and 17in. one was just as fun as the other.i will let the goverment boy and girls do the marking i will just try to catch fish like dunc says eat enjoy my 2 cents worth.

go fish

**blairarnold** · 02-23-2007, 08:53 AM

I use a hole puncher in the dorsal or anal fin. I don't think that affects them adversely.

**bwillaub** · 02-23-2007, 10:14 AM

I say leave the tagging or marking to the ones who know what the hell they are doing. Fisheries Biologists we are NOT.

**michaelj1978** · 02-23-2007, 12:08 PM

Hot pink spray paint.

**blairarnold** · 02-23-2007, 01:37 PM

It educates the other members of our club that these crappie can get a lot bigger if you don't keep them when they're small. Some of them had a pretty low cull factor, and we can generally catch crappie from 3/4 - 2 lbs and not have to keep smaller ones. It also interests me.

**[email protected]** · 02-23-2007, 04:34 PM

I think it is against the law to tag fish in mo.

**DinkMaster** · 02-23-2007, 06:21 PM

amen.......kill the fish and eat it as humane as possible....or throw it back in the water as quickly as possible, if u wanna watch em grow get an aquarium.

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